DEFINITION:
The term “schizophrenia” refers to a severe mental illness—a form of psychosis—characterized by extremely disordered thinking, including delusions and hallucinations.
Traits indicative of schizophrenia also include flat affect, hearing voices, delusions of persecution (paranoia), and social withdrawal.
Also known as “chronic schizophrenia,” this illness is sometimes said to lie at one pole of a “schizophrenia spectrum.” It should not be confused with milder forms of illness lying on the same spectrum, such as schizotypal personality disorder (see Glossary entry).
ETYMOLOGY:
The term “schizophrenia” was introduced by the Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler (1857–1939) at a public lecture in Berlin in 1908. “Schizophrenia” gradually replaced the earlier term with the same meaning, “dementia praecox” [precocious dementia], which was first used by the German psychiatrist Heinrich Schüle (1840–1916) in 1880.
“Schizophrenia” is an example of “New Latin,” meaning a word invented in recent centuries that is derived from Classical Latin or Greek vocabulary elements, which did not previously exist in that form.
In the present case, the Classical elements of the term “schizophrenia” derives from ancient Greek, namely:
(1) the prefix “schizo-,“ which derives from the verb, schizō, schizein, meaning “to split,” “to cleave,” “to rend asunder,” or “to separate”; and
(2) the noun phrēn, meaning the internal viscera within the breast, surrounding the heart, conceived of as the seat of the emotions, the feelings, and the passions. By extension, then, phrēn signifies the “heart” in the metaphorical sense of the “mind” or “consciousness.” Later, the meaning of the term was extended to encompass the “understanding” and the “reason,” as well.
DISCUSSION:
There is no reliable objective test for the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Therefore, diagnosis must be based upon observable behavior. For this purpose, therapists often make use of a psychiatric history that includes the patient’s reported experiences, as well as reports on him by his family, friends, and professional colleagues.
Persons diagnosed with schizophrenia often suffer from other mental disorders, as well, notably, substance abuse, depression, borderline personality disorder, or obsessive–compulsive disorder.
Symptoms of schizophrenia develop gradually, usually beginning during young adulthood. Unlike some other forms of psychosis, schizophrenia is seldom entirely resolved through therapy or the aging process.
The etiology of schizophrenia may include both biological/genetic and environmental/developmental factors.
Proposed genetic factors include several different types of genetic mutations. Environmental factors that have been suggested are childhood emotional trauma, childhood infections, adolescent substance abuse, and poor nutrition of the patient’s mother during pregnancy, among others.
On average, men are more frequently affected by schizophrenia than women and have an earlier age of onset.
Around one-half of one percent of the population will be diagnosed with schizophrenia during their lifetime. This translates to more than one million new diagnoses in the US every year.